Outside the Centre Square

5. An Alternative Guernsey?
These days, AFL Clubs might retain an 'away' or 'alternative' guernsey (or both) - ostensibly to aid the players in recognising their teammates, but practically just as a revenue earner.
'Back in the day', the Carlton Football Club was arguably the clear leader in 'revenue earning' in the AFL and devised a way to earn a cool $250,000 for wearing a special, one-off light blue guernsey.

The 'reward' took the form of a sponsorship from Mars Confectionary, the maker of M&M's. M&M were launching the new colour and the chance to get the famous Old Dark Navy Blues to trigger a frenzy in the press was too good to pass up. So there we were, running out on the pristine green ground of Optus Oval for Round 3, 1997 against the Crows, in an evil sky-blue!

Of course these days different guernseys are common-place. Since that time, not only has Carlton (among others) selected away guernseys, but other Clubs have also considered one-off sponsorship deals. Who could forget "Whiskas" playing down at Geelong?